Eat Your Words

Credit: Just Noey on ETSY

Four Eco-Friendly Holiday Party Ideas

I have been thinking about ways to make my holiday parties more eco-friendly. Here are some ideas that I thought up!

1. Sending an electronic invitation can save you time, money and be easy on the environment.  I love using evites.com. They a lot of cute themes and even the option to customize the look of the invite.  Evites allow your guests to easily RSVP and leave comments for you to see. Some electronic  invite websites also give you the option to assign guests things to bring or to sign up for food items to bring.  My favorite feature of the site is how the site will tally up how many maybe's, yes and no's you have for attendance. It saves so much time when trying to figure out how much I need to buy of everything.

evite.com

2. Stay away from cans and multiple bottles by serving your party beverages in pretty pitchers and classy beverage dispensers. You could serve ice water in a beverage dispenser and float lemon and orange slices in it instead of setting out cases of plastic water bottles. This will also save you time on your party clean up! I really want a pretty glass dispenser like the one below. It's a good idea to have plenty of non-alcholoic beverages available at your party so you and your guets don't get in trouble! You can serve warm apple cider directly from the stove top or put cider in a crock pot to keep it warm.

Credit: Classic Hostess

3.Bring out your fancy stuff! Do you have tablecloths and fine china that are collecting dust in the closet? Break them out instead of purchasing disposable plates and tablecloths.  Running a load of laundry or dishes uses up a lot fewer resources than a couple of packages of disposable party supplies.  Are you lacking in fancy table linens and dishes? During the holiday season Target and Wal-Mart sell simple white dishes in large qualities. It’s a little investment but then you won’t need to buy paper again! If you don’t have a tablecloth, do you have a pretty sheet or large piece of fabric you could use? I used a Wal-Mart brown sheet as a tablecloth at my friend Holly's baby shower. It was a twin sized sheet and worked out great!

4.Giving your guests a favor when leaving the party is a nice touch.  Useful favors are the best favors. Cute reusable shopping bags are everywhere these days! Present them to your guests rolled up and tied with ribbon.  White Elephant gifts are a good way to reuse unwanted junk and can provide the entertainment for your party!

Credit: Greenfeet.com

Idaho Thanksgiving Trip

Credit: Google Images

 

Josh and I are off to go visit our families in Idaho this week. We are starting off the trip by flying into Boise. We will spend a couple of days hanging out with my family. On Tuesday we will fly up to Spokane, WA where Josh's parents will pick us up and take us to Northern Idaho where we will spend Thanksgiving. This will be a big meet the family trip for both of us! I will take a lot of pictures and hopefully have tons of exciting blog posts! 

Wild Wednesday and I am taking a break!!

Hi! I stayed home from work today because I had a headache and a gross stomach all day. I did a little bit of work on my final paper for the semester. I looked over my take home exam for my quantitative methods class and that about made me throw up again!
I got to get down to business so I can get my work-work, school work and house work done so I can go to Idaho next week!

My Sister is Famous! Sweet Valley Cookie

Credit: Treasure Valley 365

Credit: Treasure Valley 365

My sister Heidi's new cookie store was featured on the blog 365 Treasure Valley TREASURES. The pictures above are from the 365 Treasure Valley blog. I haven't seen the store yet! Josh and I will get to see it on our Thanksgiving visit. I am looking forward to lots of coffee and lots of cookies.The store is in Eagle, Idaho. Heidi said that she wants to a blog sponsor. That means  a big cookie giveaway is coming up! Check out Sweet Valley Cookies website to start thinking about what kind of cookies you will want!

Happy Rainbows!

Credit: Goh Li Kim

I was playing around on the internet and found this girl's really sweet illustration blog. I love her art work. She does tons of Jack Russell work!

Shutterfly Personalized Holiday Cards

    If you have read a couple of my blog posts, you'll know that I  love anything that I can personalize! I am in love with Shutterfly's Holiday products. Josh and I had only been dating for a couple of months last Christmas so it would have been pretty psycho to send out holiday cards from the two of us!

    I don't have the "official" holiday portraits done yet but I played around with some of my favorite designs from the site. I liked how I could customize the text to say what I wanted to. You can change the color, size and font of the text. Go check out the rest of their cards! It's a lot of fun. I am glad that I have time to decide because there are tons of cute card designs!

I am also really into their gift tags. They are way cute and I could see using some of the designs year round! I like to make little trinket gifts. I think that it would be really amazing to put a little pin or attach a pair of earrings to one of these cards. I plan on taping these to plates of holiday cookies. Sorry that the images are blurry, I am not sure what's up with that. Go see the tags on the Shutterfly site! 

Gift Tags

Vinyl is all over the blog world but check out this use of vinyl!

Photo Vinyl

Isn't that wild? They come in a couple sizes. Maybe I should get one of Josh for when he moves! Ha ha! He would kill me! They have a lot of other photo gifts, such as canvas prints, coasters and posters. Go to their site to see it all.  

What is your favorite product on Shutterfly? Let me know!

I also want to know when you plan on sending out your holiday cards?

Hey my blogger friends! Check this out:

Bloggers get 50 free Cards. Check out the deal here!

Show Us Where you Live! Apartment Bathroom

I think that I came up with some good fixes for this bathroom. My apartment is older but it's not too outdated for the most part. The bathroom is another story. There are all kinds of strange and ugly stuff going on! Thanks Windsor Hills! I have managed to make the bathroom livable!

View from the hall

World's ugliest bathroom light fixture! I was trying to come up with a way to replace it and  still get my deposit back. I couldn't because the room's only outlet is inside the cabinet.

 

I spray painted (mocha) and and screwed a set of brass door knobs to the wall so I can hang my bath towels on. If you look at the next picture, the towel bar that is installed is pretty worthless. I would rather my towels not drag into the the toilet!

See the bad towel bar? I don't have any counter space so I keep my cotton balls and q tips in the jars. I have my  breast cancer ducky that my friend Kat made. So cute that I can't stand to use the soap that it sits in.

This is a laundry hamper! It is muy ugly. It's rusted out in the inside. It reminds me of EVA from Wall E. I usually hang my robe up over it! If this was my house, I would have ripped it out and dry walled over it.

. This is a two for one post! These are pictures of the master bathroom in our new house in Louisiana. It's a huge improvement over what Josh and I have now. I do want to change some stuff but it's all newer stuff and it's clean!

I want to frame out the mirror and talk Josh into letting me paint the vanity.

I am going to build, built in shelves to go over the toilet in this little nook.

I am linking up to Kelly's Korner Blog. Go check out all of the other bathrooms! 

Go Josh!

Josh at his tri this summer!

Josh is running a marathon today in Richmond, VA! Good luck babe! Love you! 

How to make amazing Baby Leg Warmers!

Baby leg warmers are one of the top selling items on ETSY. They sell for around $10.00 a set. These are a very cool baby accessory, they allow baby's legs to stay warm but give you the ease of a quick diaper change with only having to deal with a onesie. These leg warmers are crazy cute, inexpensive and easy to make. Despite the look on Auden's face, he enjoyed his Halloween pair. There are so many cute knee socks out, that you could make these for any holiday or outfit!

My Lil' friend with bat argyle leg warmers!

So here's how you can whip up a pair of your own!

cut into "long piece", heel, toe, "bottom piece"

make cuff

adding cuff to long piece

I stretched the cuff over the sewing machine arm

1. lay the sock out, cut the "long part" off, then cut the heel off and the toe of the remaining piece. Throw the heel and toes piece away. This becomes. "the bottom piece"

2. Take the piece and fold it in half. It makes a cuff and this the part that goes up on baby's thighs.
3. Add the cuff to the long piece. Tuck the cuff into the long piece right sides together.
4. Sew the cuff to the long piece. I was able to stretch my sock over the arm of my machine.
5. Turn the socks right side out and your baby is really to sport some seriously cute leg warmers!

I am linking up to the following parties

http://romantichome.blogspot.com/

MARTHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Martha was on Colbert Report last night!  Thank you Josh for letting me know! You can click on the link below to see the full episode. She comes on at the last part of the show. Martha is funny in her own Martha way! 

Click here for the episode

Navy Girl!

This was me back in the day, when  I was kicking it up and down on the coast with the Emory S. Land AS-39!